Indian financial consultant Waqar Khan has seen his income drop by about a fifth since the coronavirus pandemic began. When his younger son’s private school raised fees by 10% this year, he had no choice but to move him to the state system.
With three children and living in a small house in the capital, New Delhi, the 45-year-old can no longer afford private school fees for his boy of 10. He moved his older boy into a state school in early in 2021.
“I had no option,” Khan told that, adding that rising education costs had come on top of a nearly 25% increase in household expenses in the past two years.
While inflation is putting the heaviest burden on the poorest, the relatively well-off are coming under the sort of pressure to make cuts in household budgets not seen in years.
Khan is among millions of parents who have moved children from private to state education since 2020, or from elite schools to cheaper ones. In 2021, four million children switched from private to state, more than 4% of all children in school.
That is a reversal of a trend that has swept India over the past two decades, as more families in an increasingly prosperous society opted for private education to give their children an advantage in the job market.
But now inflation means that such aspirations are becoming unaffordable for some.
The private sector covers a range of schools and fees, from a few dollars a month to hundreds, and so serves lower- and middle-income families as well as the wealthy.
On top of fees, transport companies that take children to school have raised prices by more than 15% this month in Delhi and some other places to cover higher wages and fuel, parents’ associations said.